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Monday, January 2, 2012

Tortorella Accuses Refs of Trying To Fix Game For Flyers

New York Rangers coach John Tortorella enjoyed that his team rallied to win the 2012 Bridgestone NHL Winter Classic 3-2, but that did not stop Tortorella from commenting on the questionable officiating down the stretch of the game. Via Puck Daddy:

"I'm not sure if NBC got together with the refs," said Tortorella, after the Rangers' 3-2 victory on Monday, regarding Ian Walsh and Dennis LaRue.

"It started with the non-call [when] Gabby was pitch-forked in the stomach, and then everything starts going against us. They're two good referees; I thought the game was referred horribly. So I'm not sure what happened there. Maybe they wanted to get it to an overtime. I'm not sure if they have meetings about that or what. But we stood in there. They're good guys. But in that third period, it was disgusting."

Tortorella will likely get fined for his comments, but the series of calls within the last five minutes of the game were disgraceful.Starting with the delay of game penalty that was called against Ryan McDonagh at 14:48 when he was clearly pushed into Rangers’ net by van Riemsdyk the Rangers seemed to be played an uphill battle.

At 18:54, Ryan Callahan was taken down by Kimmo Timonen in the neutral zone while the Flyers net was empty, but instead of the Rangers being on the power play coincidental minors were called.Finally, at 19:40, there was the call on McDonagh for apparently covering his hand on the puck in the crease which gave Briere the penalty shot opportunity.